Field
The technology of the present application relates generally to an annotation system, and more specifically, to an annotation system that provides multiple users the ability to privately or publicly annotate data and user interfaces of a database management system.
Background
Information, data, documents, data warehousing, document management, and data management is prevalent and almost a fundamental task in today's working environment. As more and more information becomes available to businesses and individuals, the ability to manage the massive amounts of information becomes increasing difficult.
Many conventional databases can be used to store and manage the massive amounts of data and information contained in the database. Some conventional databases include, for example, databases available from Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Incorporated, IBM Corporation, to name but a few companies that have databases and database management systems. Database management systems generally comprise one or more sets of executing codes operating on one or more connected processors that interface with a system memory, which may itself be localized or spread across a number of machines. The database management systems (sometimes referred to as a DBMS) generally allows one or more (and typically many) users to access the same set of centrally stored data. The system, in most cases, provides a user at a user workstation a graphical user interface (sometimes referred to as a GUI) in which a user may manipulate data or perform other functions as allowed by applications running on the workstation or a central processor. The GUI often allows the user to read, write, and manipulate data. Manipulated data and data written to the database may be available to other users in real time. The DBMS will have protocols to facilitate any reads, writes, and/or manipulation of data to avoid situations where two users attempt to read and manipulate data substantially simultaneously to avoid corruption of the data.
Much of today's information is stored in various databases or document management systems. Documents as used herein should broadly be construed to include electronic files containing one or more of the following non-exclusive examples: text files, image files, audio files, video files, audio/video files, or combinations thereof. Documents may be considered to be a compilation of data. Data may be raw or processed blocks of datum as is conventionally understood in the art.
In order to more readily assess information or data contained in documents, electronic annotation systems were developed to allow documents to be annotated such that notes or highlights would be saved with the document. In some cases, the annotations are contained in the display of the document, such as “notes in the margin” of a text document. In other cases, the annotations are superimposed on the document, such as, for example, a sticky note may be placed on a framed picture (sometimes referred to as meta data).
However, conventional annotation systems typically provide the ability to annotate documents or compilations of data. Data management systems and engines that warehouse and process the data contained in the data management systems could benefit from improved annotation systems. There is, therefore, a need in the art for an improved system and method to allow annotation of data and the user interfaces associated with managing the data.